19102 Review: If it’s too loud, you’re too old
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Jon Stewart dressed like Molly Ringwald in the 80s.
No Slam Dancing, No Stage Diving...
Amy Yates Wuelfing and Steven DiLodovico
(DiWulf Publishing, March 10, 431 pp.)
Early in No Slam Dancing, No Stage Diving, No Spikes: An Oral History of the Legendary City Gardens, former promoter Randy Now recounts a show that “5,000 people claim to have been at, but only 500 tickets were sold.”
It’s called “The Day the Butthole Surfers Came to Town,” an early entry in the new book that celebrates the seminal underground music club in Trenton during the ’80s and early ’90s.
This particular story is told by Now and his fellow City Gardens staffers, Butthole Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes, Mickey Ween (who also wrote the foreword) and other regulars.
The Surfers’ set featured a topless dancer, which the club previously banned for the all-ages show. Haynes responds to getting shut down by setting aflame his arm, the drum set, audience members’ heads and finally the club itself (the last one was an accident). The fire is extinguished. A bona fide riot ensues. And that’s just the intro.
Local authors Amy Yates Wuelfing and Steven DiLodovico conducted more than 100 interviews over nearly a decade and a half to capture as much material as possible. Ian MacKaye, Jello Biafra and Henry Rollins get their say, along with countless others. Even Jon Stewart weighs in — he was a bartender at City Gardens. In the 80s, he recalls, “We all dressed like Molly Ringwald. … Even the guys.”
At one point, Philly’s own Eric Bazilian waxes nostalgic about what a great, magical place City Gardens was. The next line comes from one of the bartenders: “The Hooters were a bunch of pompous asses.”
